IT'S TIME FOR AFRICA!!

Wow! I can hardly believe it! The past three months just flew right on by. Now, my group of 26 students and leaders will be flying to South Africa tomorrow morning! This has been a crazy journey and God has revealed so much to me! It was hard and at sometimes painful but overall the best, most exciting experience yet! I am so ready for Africa and all the crazy things that God is going to do there! Tomorrow morning we will be flying to Atlanta and from Atlanta we have a 15 hour flight to Johanesburg, South Africa. After spending 16 days in South Africa, we will be taking a 28 hour bus ride to Dondo, Mozambique! We will spend three weeks in Mozambique and then take another 28 hour bus ride back to South Africa and fly back into the states! We will mostly be working in orphanages and doing a lot of street ministry. We will also be teaching english, doing dramas and skits and maintenance work. Thank you all for your prayers and your support as I went through this life changing journey. I appreciate everything that you all have done for me! Your continued prayers will be appreciated as I step into the next part of my journey in Africa!

Prayer requests:

-Safety as we travel

-Unity amongst our team

-That the people of Africa have receiving hearts and ears for what we have to say

-That God’s love will overflow from all of us and onto the people in Africa

-For God’s grace when times are hard

-Health amongst our team

The Africa Team!!

Have a blessed day,

Amy

Evangelism and Life in the Spirit

Last week our DTS class was blessed to have an awesome speaker, Dudley Winer to come speak to us! He and his family live in France and have started an YWAM base there. It’s safe to say that we were all truly blessed by seeing God speak through him to us! Here are a few main points from last weeks teaching:

*Sharing Jesus with others isn’t complicated, we are.

*Only when were faithful in the revelation that God has given us will He give us more.

*We were created for adventures! God likes surprising us!

*We are the place where the kingdom of Heaven connects with this world.

*God is just waiting for us to press into Him!

*The safest place in this WORLD to be is WITH GOD, WHEREVER He wants you to be.

*When we become GENUINLY interested in people’s lives, they open up to us and invite us in.

*Are we trying to make converts or are we sharing Christ’s love?

*We shouldn’t have an agenda for the gospel; God is not in a hurry!

“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement He will show him even great things than these”-JOHN 5:19-20. This verse really stuck out to me because it creates FREEDOM! I will only do what my Heavenly Father tells me to do. It takes off the burden and stress of wanting to do everything. I will go and do and speak just like my Heavenly Father does.

We also studied the first church in the book of Acts. It was really interesting to “take apart” the Bible and do an in depth study of it! We really looked into the story of Philip and Ethiopian. I learned two important things… 1. Philip first listened to the Lord 2. After listening, Philip fulfilled a need.

Dudley was such a blessing to us last week! We learned that evangelism and life in the Spirit is natural and all we have to do is be obedient! There is no secret recipe! Thank you all for your prayers! There is no secret recipe! Thank you all for your prayers! God bless you all!

Love,

Amy

Relationships week & L.A. week!

Hello Everyone!

Sorry I haven’t updated in a while! I’ve been really busy lately! My DTS just got back from Los Angelo’s, CA late Saturday night. We were there for one week (which I will talk about later!) I have learned so much in the past two weeks, it’s crazy! Two weeks ago, our topic was on relationships. Our speakers were Jeremy and Keeley Lange. Their family is on staff at YWAM Denver. It was such a blessing to have them as our speakers! They were so down to earth and had such patience with us in answering all of our questions and opening everything up for discussion! They covered every topic of relationships from our relationship with God to our relationship with the opposite sex. It was encouraging to see Jeremy and Keeley living out what they were teaching us about! A few key points I got:

*Unconditional love is self-less

*We don’t like being rejected and neglected, neither does God

*LOVE IS AN ACTION

*”Unconditional love flows when you choose to love others for their sake, not your own”

*True love is what is pleasing to God, not what is pleasing to me

*Talked a lot about submission and humility

“Let us not love with words and tongue, but with actions and in truth.”

-1 John 3:18

As I mentioned above, my DTS went to L.A for a week! It was such a great trip! We stayed at the YWAM Las Vegas base on the way to L.A and on the way back! We arrived in L.A last Sunday night. We stayed on the floor of a church all week. The church was in a little town called Arleta, outside of L.A. Our topic for the week was the Holy Spirit. Our speaker was Ben Gort. He and his family is also on staff at YWAM Denver. Ben was kind enough to take a week away from his family to be with us and share his revelations and part of his heart with us! Here are some highlights from the trip:

* Tuesday and Wednesday we worked with the Dream Center. My group distributed food to the low income, poverty stricken parts of L.A. We also had a kids ministry time where we hung out with the kids and played games and did crafts with them. On Wednesday night, we worked with the Jonah Project. We did street evangelism and service on Skid Row. Skid Row is a couple blocks where a lot of the homeless people live and a lot of drug users go to. This place definitely needs the light and the love of God to shine! We walked around and talked to some people and did a lot of prayer walking and handing out coffee, etc. It was really cool and amazing to see God’s love pour out of us onto the people living there.

*Thursday we went to Venice Beach! It was so beautiful! Our school leader decided to do baptisms in the ocean on Thursday. So I got baptized! It was such a great opportunity to declare a new life in Christ! Although the water was really cold, we still had fun! Then, we walked around the boardwalk and talked to people and prayed for people. Once again, people saw our light shine and wondered why we were doing what we’re doing. We had lots of great opportunity to share the love of the Father with people and see the smiles on their faces!

Along with all the exciting activities we had, we also had two full days of class time as well! I learned so much about the Holy Spirit and God really showed me some cool new things!

*”We need to be natural and let God be supernatural” –Stephan Hugo

*The Holy Spirit was in the Old Testament

*When we live in full submission to Him, He does MIRACULOUS things through us!

*Our actions don’t define us, our FRUIT defines us”

*God wants us to desire the gifts of the Holy Spirit

*”Is your faith in God or in something miraculous happening?”

*God’s order is not our order…so therefore we shouldn’t judge when we see something that might look “strange” to us (manifestations, etc.)

*Instead of judging we should ask God “what is going on here” so we know how to pray for that person and what God wants to reveal to us

God really showed up to me this week during our worship times! I never felt His presence so real as I did then. It felt like God was sitting next to me, holding my hand! It was an amazing expierence and the Holy Spirit really did move! God is really making a “platform” for my faith. I was challenged to find my own opinions on things and not base my faith off of what others believe. God is so good and so faithful! I keep learning so much and He NEVER lets me down!

THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THIS!

BE BLESSED,

Amy



Downtown L.A.!!



Venice Beach!!



Chelsea, Sarah and I on Venice Beach!!